


Orange Hearts

by HeKnowsSomeThings



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Abandonment, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, But mostly angst, Dustin Centric, Fluff and Angst, Gen, I refer to Mike as she because i am of the firm belief that she is a trans girl, Projecting ones emotions onto something else, Sadness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-18
Updated: 2017-11-18
Packaged: 2019-02-03 22:04:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,124
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12757062
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HeKnowsSomeThings/pseuds/HeKnowsSomeThings
Summary: Dustin was surprised when his phone updated and there was an orange heart next to the red one. He was also surprised when he immediately hated it for no other reason than it existing. He knew that he was being dramatic but he still felt the need to hate this ugly little heart.





	Orange Hearts

**Author's Note:**

> This story is under the assumption that Dusty's dad was never part of his life. It made me really sad but I thought this would fit well with Dustin.

Dustin was surprised when his phone updated and there was an orange heart next to the red one. He was also surprised when he immediately hated it for no other reason than it existing. He knew that he was being dramatic but he still felt the need to hate this ugly little heart.

When Max messages the heart into the groupchat, he flips out, says it’s hideous and should burn in the fiery pits of hell. She questions him and he doesn’t reply.

The next time someone messages him the heart is El and Dustin supposes she’s forgotten the groupchat ordeal. He tells her to fuck off with that bullshit and Lucas is quick to defend her. Dustin only texts back to not send him that ugly lil bitch anymore.

Will asks him about it the next day and all Dustin can say is that it shouldn’t even be here. Will looks incredulous and Dustin rushes away muttering about being late for Steve to pick him up.

El and Max change each other’s contact names to J and M with little orange hearts next to them. Dustin doesn’t message them for three days.

Mike confronts him during PE, she asks why he’s being an ass and Dustin shrugs her off. He doesn’t know, he says, he doesn’t know why it’s affecting him so much.

It’s been a week since Dustin noticed the little heart and he realises that he’s let this stupid emoji fuck him up.

It’s been a week and Dustin finally realises he’s projecting his emotions onto this poor heart.

He messages the groupchat that he’s sorry for acting like a brat. They ask why and Dustin says he’s been projecting. They ask what he’s projecting and he only sends back a shrugging emoji.

He messages El that he’s sorry again and she asks if he’s okay. He says sort of and they talk about his dad. About how before his dad showed up almost a fortnight ago, all he’d ever seen was one blurry picture of the douche but he still feels like his dad found something about him to be disappointed in. El says he shouldn’t feel like that but she knows that he probably always will.

He then tells her about his worries about The Party. About how he thinks they’ll forget about him and about how if his dad left before meeting him then they’re sure to bounce soon enough. El reassures him, tells him that they’ll never forget about him, that they love him and his father is a fool.

Dustin cries a little bit before messaging her that he thinks Steve will leave him as well. El says that Steve loves Dustin more than he loves himself and that he wouldn’t ever even _think_ about abandoning him.

He messages Max that he’s really sorry, and when she asks what this is all about, he sends her screenshots of the start of his conversation with El. She replies with a wow and Dustin asks what he should do about how he feels about his dad. He feels bad about laying this on her because Lord knows Max has dealt with her fair share of shitty family members.

She asks him if the orange heart is his dad, he says that, in this shitty analogy, yes.

Max sends him a little orange heart and tells him to tell it what he feels. He thinks she’s joking; he tells her to not be ridiculous. She sends another heart and asks if it frustrates him, if it makes him sad, if it makes him feel unsure?

He writes a long text, the longest in a while and gets his emotions out.

**_"It’s here and it expects me to love it as much as I would’ve all those years before it wasn’t here. But I can’t because I can’t subject myself to being hurt like that again. I’ve just finally gotten to a place where I’m good, things are good and this fucking heart comes waltzing in and I just can’t fucking deal with it because I don’t want to get attached before it just goes away again and I don’t talk to it for another decade and a half and I don’t want us to be stuck in the same spot we were before because. This thing that left us to fend for ourselves and Ma was so close to giving up for real, just ending it, and I can’t. I just can’t Max.”_ **

Dustin feels liberated. He knows the message is hard to read but he doesn’t care. He finally got to say everything he needed to, he finally got to stop smiling about his absentee father, he finally got to cry.

But then he sends a ‘but’, and Max asks ‘but what’ and he sobs the entire time he writes the message.

**_"I want him here and I want him to hug me and apologise for leaving me and I don’t know why. Shit Max why does everything have to be so fucking complicated."_ **

Max tells him because life is complicated but then she says to go to Steve’s, to stay there until his dad leaves in two days or to talk to him, yell at him, interact with him.

He chickens out and calls Steve.

When Steve picks him up the next day he hugs him and he cries and Steve is surprised and worried but he hugs him back and tells him it’ll be okay. That he’ll be here.

He sobs into Steve’s chest because he’s too short to reach his shoulder. Dustin finally pulls away and Steve drives them to the Junkyard. They sit in Steve’s car for nearly an hour before Dustin says anything. And when he starts, he doesn’t stop. His sentences become convoluted and he stumbles over words and then he’s crying again and Steve is hugging him.

Steve says his dad is an idiot, that he would give anything to have a son like Dustin, and then he smirks and says that he would give anything to have a wife like Claudia Henderson. And then Dustin is giggling and pushing Steve away before punching him in the arm and calling him an ass.

Steve shrugs playfully before looking at Dustin with the sincerest smile Dustin has ever seen on him, and saying that he’s serious, that Dustin’s dad doesn’t deserve him and that Dustin can stay at his until his dad leaves. His parents are out of town again and he’s missed Dustin’s company.

Dustin smiles and nods.

He messages the groupchat that he loves them, he tacks a heart on the end of it, an orange one.

He might not have a dad but he has a pretty great family.

**Author's Note:**

> So this whole 'orange heart' debacle actually happened to me because i dont know how to process emotions very well. and while i have never met my father, i was still projecting my emotions about him onto the heart. dustin's dad comes back just barely because it fits thematically.


End file.
